'Detroit' headed to National Theatre, Steppenwolf says

Steppenwolf Theatre Company said Sunday that the National Theatre in London will produce Lisa D'Amour's "Detroit" in May, 2012.

This will not, though, be the Steppenwolf production of the play (as was the case in 2008 with Tracy Letts' "August: Osage County"), but a separate staging that may or not involve some members of the original creative team (Austin Pendleton directed the premiere in Chicago in 2010). Either way, the cast will not be the same.

The London outing would appear to nix the previously announced Broadway production for this season, although the producer Jeffrey Richards continues to hold the Broadway rights and has said that he still plans to produce the play on Broadway.

But the current Broadway season is heavy on new plays and the original cast of "Detroit" has been making other plans. Laurie Metcalf, for example, will appear in the latest David Mamet play, "The Anarchist," another Richards production currently slated for Broadway in the fall of 2012.

Representatives of the National saw the first production of the show in Chicago.